From inclusion to epistemic belonging in international environmental expertise: learning from the institutionalisation of scenarios and models in IPBES

ABSTRACT

The inclusion of diverse perspectives from different disciplines, genders and locations has become a foreground concern in environmental expertise. While inclusion is increasingly accounted for in the design and evaluation of expert organisations, questions remain about the extent to which the pursuit of inclusion equates to effective participation. Building on recent scholarship on expertise in environmental sociology and public participation in environmental governance, this paper puts forward the argument that enabling inclusion in international expert organisations can be supported by facilitating epistemic belonging – a state achieved not only through mutual recognition of skilful practice amongst their expert communities (i.e. group belonging) but also the mobilisation of material resources within and beyond these organisations that enable participating experts to assert their importance, define their specialist skills and to effectively enact their epistemic practices. In this account, I trace the institutionalization of biodiversity scenarios and models in the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) to show how achieving epistemic belonging requires expert communities to actively reshape the resource environments in which they operate. This account extends current sociological perspectives on environmental expertise and offers insights for environmental expert organisations seeking to broaden their inclusion practices.

KEYWORDS:

• Epistemic belonging
• expertise
• global environmental assessments
• inclusion
• IPBES
• scenarios and models

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the interviewees and survey respondents for their contributions and the administrators of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) for their time and generosity during fieldwork. This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council [number 1362673] and an Early Career Fellowship from the Leverhulme Trust.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Leverhulme Trust; Economic and Social Research Council.

Notes on contributors

Jasper Montana

Jasper Montana is a Research Fellow in the School of Geography and the Environment at the University of Oxford funded by the Leverhulme Trust. His work examines the organisational, epistemic and normative basis of environmental governance focusing on biodiversity and nature conservation.